Neurostimulation is a treatment method utilized for managing the disabilities associated with pain, movement disorders such as Parkinson's Disease (PD), dystonia, and essential tremor, and also a number of psychological disorders such as depression, mood, anxiety, addiction, and obsessive compulsive disorders. For example, deep brain stimulation (DBS) systems treat symptoms associated with movement disorders and psychiatric disorders by delivering electrical stimulation to a patient's brain.
Modern DBS systems are designed to deliver low-intensity electrical pulses to nerves/tissue in various combinations of amplitude, pulse width, and frequency. The electrical pulses travel from an implantable pulse generator (IPG), through leads and extensions, to electrodes near selected brain targets in order to provide therapeutic stimulation to one or both sides of the brain. To provide this stimulation, DBS systems are typically configured with a combination of an anode and one or more cathodes. As failure of one or more anodes or cathodes may result in an increased charge density, it would be desirable to accurately detect lead failure in a neurostimulation system.